Scrooged – 30th Anniversary Blu-ray Review

Charles Dickens’ classic, “A Christmas Carol”, has been told and retold many times before. However, Scrooged puts a clever twist on the classic tale by setting it in modern times. This time around Scrooge is a ruthless TV executive who happens to be adapting “A Christmas Carol” for his station. Unfortunately, the modern twist doesn’t quite seem to fit that well at times. For the most part, the modern versions of the Christmas ghosts are more annoying than anything else. Also, they take away from the film as well. When you combine Bill Murray’s personality and the ghosts’ antics and brashness. In the end, it goes too over-the-top.

Nevertheless, character development has always been the key concept of the book and the filmmakers keep that concept alive in Scrooged. In the film, whenever the ghosts’ show Frank his past, present, and future it becomes a good way to see how he evolved into a total utter prick. Yet, at the same time, you get to see how he improves with each and every single ghost. In the end, the film is as warm and fuzzy as every single Christmas Carol adaptation out there. They didn’t reinvent the wheel with the storyline, but if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it.

Unsurprisingly, Bill Murray is the key reason why Scrooged is so good. Because he’s Bill Murray, you automatically love him. But in the film, you both love him and hate him. Murray plays Frank so cruelly and sarcastically that you tend to not like him. Once he finally laments his actions, you’ll automatically forgive him… Because let’s face it, he’s still Bill Murray.

Both Karen Allen and Alfre Woodard are sweet and relatable as Claire Phillips and Grace Cooley, respectively. Needless to say, they’re the primary reason why you dislike Frank so much. Mainly because they’re so kind that you can’t figure out why a person would be so cruel to them.

Overall, Scrooged is a classic film that should be seen during the holidays every single year. However, like most holiday films it’s not entirely perfect. It has its issues with characters and pacing. Then again, if you can capture the holiday spirit and put people in the holiday mood when you did your job. That’s where Scrooged succeeds the most. The film will definitely put you in the mood for the holidays.

Movie Rating: 4/5 atoms

Video

For its 30th anniversary, Scrooged hits Blu-ray with a 1080p MPEG-AVC with a 1.78:1 aspect ratio. For an 80s film, the detail clarity looks incredibly sharp. You can see the finest of details in the picture. There’s also a nice contrast to the picture as well. There’s a nice balance between the shadows and light which doesn’t make the picture look flat. Speaking of which, the brightness is vivid but there is a slight bloom in some of the overly bright areas.

The black levels have an overall wide grayscale. In other words, the shadows are either a deep black or a lighter shade of black. Unfortunately, the darker scenes have a good amount of crush in the shadow details. The color palette slightly pops from the screen while the skin tones look natural as well. The film grain is barely noticeable too—a rarity in an 80s Blu-ray release. Overall, this is an impressive video transfer.

Video Rating: 5/5 atoms

Audio

For its 30th anniversary, Scrooged hits Blu-ray with a 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track. Similar to the video transfer, the audio mix is the same as last year’s release. Considering this is a comedy, it’s surprising to see a good amount of immersion in this film. The mix makes good use of the surround channels when immersing you in the ghost scenes. The sound effects are accurately positioned across the soundstage putting you right in Frank’s journey. Not to mention, the Christmas score blares through the soundstage with clarity too.

That’s not to say that this level of immersion happens all the time. Nevertheless, the dialogue comes in crisp through the front channels. Unfortunately, there isn’t much oomph as the LFE is totally ignored here. Overall, it’s pretty impressive for an 80s comedy audio mix.

Audio Rating: 4.5/5 atoms

Special Features

The Scrooged 30th anniversary Blu-ray doesn’t have any special features on it except for the theatrical trailer. One would figure that some sort of retrospective or behind-the-scenes featurette would be on the disc. Unfortunately, the theatrical trailer has been the same lone supplement since the first Blu-ray release back in 2011.

Special Features Rating: 0.5/5 atoms

Overall, Scrooged is a fantastic holiday film that’s a hilarious as it is dark. Bill Murray is simply magical in the film. The video and audio are amazing considering this is an 80s film. Unfortunately, after all these years the Blu-ray still doesn’t have any other special feature other than the theatrical trailer.

Overall Rating: 3.5/5 atoms

This Blu-ray was reviewed using a retail/advance copy/unit provided by Paramount Home Entertainment.